The present invention relates to a drying stand for clothing and, in particular, ski boots, gloves and other clothing articles. More particularly, it relates to such a drying stand which can be adapted to any conventional, hand-held hair dryer to dry wet clothing items.
Ski clothing and, in particular, ski boots and ski boot inserts or bladders, gloves, hats, goggles, etc. often become wet after use and must be dried prior to their re-use. Typically, the skier will simply place his ski boots and other clothes near a hot-heat source to dry them out, however, this may ruin, for example, the ski boots. There are also a variety of relatively expensive boot dryers having varying degrees of effectiveness. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,136,464, granted to Hay; U.S. Pat. No. 194,512, to Donaldson; and U.S. Pat. No. 243,313, to Varnado. In addition, a variety of drying fixtures for clothing and other items have been proposed, which employ conventional hair dryers. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,076,735, to Leindorf; U.S. Pat. No. 4,094,076, to Baslow; U.S. Pat. No. 5,115,580, to Blumenfeld et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,014,446, to Reesman. However, these devices are generally disadvantageous for a number of reasons, including the cost of manufacture, complexity of the design and/or because they are unsuitable for ski boot bladders or liners and/or ski gloves. In addition, they generally cannot accommodate a variety of differently dimensioned hair dryer nozzles, and consequently, they are not universally adaptable and effective for a wide range of hand-held hair dryers.